O07 National Consultant Improvement Programme quantifies standard dermatology surgery and Mohs micrographic surgery practice and adverse events in England

Abstract

With over 10 200 consultant users from 12 surgical specialties across 452 procedure dashboards, the NHS England National Consultant Improvement Programme (NCIP) platform allows consultants to access their whole surgical practice. It measures all NHS day-case and inpatient surgical activity, in NHS and private hospitals, and all private surgery in NHS hospitals. By benchmarking individual and departmental activity and outcomes against national averages, the NCIP supports clinical quality and patient safety. The aim of this study was to quantify standard dermatology surgery, Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) and adverse events in England. This study analysed dermatology surgical activity from July 2024 to June 2025 on NCIP from English hospital data returns. The dashboard for all specialties identified 158 130 non-head and neck skin operations: 81 179 (51%) dermatology, 50 562 (32%) plastic surgery, 15 061 (10%) general surgery and 11 328 (7%) other specialties. There were 190 459 skin operations on the head and neck: 63 123 (33%) dermatology, 57 860 (30%) plastic surgery, 29 113 (15%) oral and maxillofacial surgery, 22 307 (12%) ophthalmology, 11 119 (6%) ear–nose–throat and 6937 (4%) other specialties. Following head and neck skin surgery across all specialties there was all-cause 30-day emergency readmission in 2.0% of cases, 30-day elective readmission in a related specialty in 3.8%, flap or graft reconstruction in 2.5%, 2-month readmission with a wound infection in 0.33% and 4-month readmission with sepsis in 0.34%. MMS on head and neck skin sites was recorded in 8911 cases. All-cause 30-day emergency readmission was recorded in 0.97% of cases, 2-month readmission wound infection in 0.35% and 4-month readmission with sepsis in 0.18%. MMS was recorded as undertaken by dermatologists in 7437 cases (83%), with 30-day emergency readmission in 0.93%, 2-month readmission with wound infection in 0.33% and 4-month readmission with sepsis in 0.18%. Limitations of this study include NCIP not yet capturing outpatient procedure data, and inaccuracies in individual hospital data collection. These data show low rates of serious adverse events after skin surgery, with comparable low complication rates after MMS. NCIP allows surgeons to access personal data benchmarked against these national averages.